Admin_01

Great question, Chris. The software that runs our website has two "rating" tools that are available to registered members. One of those is the "rate" a topic and the other is to "give reputation" to specific posts that a member makes. You are asking about the second tool. Foremost, you do not have a bad reputation, either on this website or in real life. We know you and you are a good guy. People still to this day admire the stained glass window of our home. When a registered member (guests are not permitted to give reputation) reads one of your posts (be it a topic starter or a post as a reply within a topic thread) and they either really like it or dislike it, they can click a button to give you either "positive reputation" or to "ding you for negative reputation". For more details, please see http://www.chiriqui.life/topic/463-reputation-issues-in-a-long-thread/#comment-1611 for more information about reputations. It appears that your notification settings (part of the profile settings for your account) are configured such that you get a notification when you are given some reputation. You may change that notification setting to your preference. Most people like to know when they get some reputation, but you get to decide for you. If this doesn't fully address your question, please ask for clarification in a reply to this posting. That is our job.

Regretfully not.

Al, You get the honor of being the first member to utilize the polling functionality of this website. Congratulations.

To Bonnie, JoJo, and Dottie, Thank you for your words of support. This was a difficult upgrade, for both myself and the members. The general consensus is that we are going in a good direction. There is more work to be done, and with your feedback and involvement we will get there.

First off, I apologize because this is going to be a long response. Several embedded questions and issues here. If a member opts to "ignore" another member's postings, there is no reverse "ignore" that is automatically turned on. To "ignore" is a unidirectional tool. Yes, it is the software that we run that lists the photos in the activity stream, providing that the photos (or postings) meet the criteria that one sets in their filter options. I am having some difficulty with the definition of the term "personal photos". Most photos, unless they have been plagiarized (either with or without credit/permission) from other sources, are in fact "personal photos". If they are plagiarized, then there might be issues with copyright violations, which would then raise the issue of violating some of our Terms and Rules. That does not appear to be the situation here. I believe the reference to "personal photos" here is to the 15 photos that were posted earlier today in a gallery dedicated to Hil (at his request and in compliance with our Terms and Rules), and then further subordinated in an album that had been created by the originator. It is my understanding that those photos were all taken on a comarca in the Tolé area. These are not "personal photos" in the sense of someone's birthday or anniversary photos in one's living room or backyard. Given that Tolé is part of the Chiriqui Province, it appears that the photos are about life in Chiriqui, which is what this website is about. Going further, I have received some favorable feedback via private message and email that some members have appreciated that the photos were posted, but that they were wanting more information about when the photos were taken and some basic title or annotation so that viewers would know more about what they were looking at. That request for annotation had already been sent to Hal by me via private message, prior to my seeing this Q&A post. It is Hal's choice to annotate or not. As I mentioned to Hal in that private message, I don't understand why those members did not ask Hal directly either by private message or posting a reply to his photos. Maybe they are shy, or did not want to appear critical of someone. This website is not wanting to censor, restrict, or otherwise limit what people post as long as our Terms and Rules are complied with. In summary, I can only conclude the photos appear to be in full compliance with our Terms and Rules. If I have missed something here, please let me know. Not sure where to go now. Are we talking about asking for a change in our Terms and Rules? Feedback solicited

Not sure what you are asking me to do. Postings in CL are not removed, which means this information remains available for a very long time. What am I not understanding here?

Twin Wolf, More on the Gravatar problem. I went into your profile (as an administrator) and simply reapplied your Gravatar email address, and it worked fine. I did not remove the old image; I simply reapplied the same email address in your profile Methinks we have a fix. If you concur, then I will put up an announcement to that effect. I have no idea how many members use Gravatars. P.S., my avatars as Admin_01 and Bud and Moderator_01 are Gravatars,. They are functioning perfectly now that I have re-linked them. If you check out the Gravatar for Moderator_01 you will see what I look like. -------------------- For those reading this and not knowing what the heck we are talking about, a Gravatar is a "Globally Recognized Avatar". An avatar is a small digital image that is used to visually represent a person or entity, and each one is linked with an email address. Gravatars are a no cost method to manage an avatar globally. Gravatars are a service provided by WordPress (of blog fame). A more detailed description is available at https://en.gravatar.com/ and at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravatar. Avatars have an interesting basis in Hinduism, but I leave further details to your own research.

Twin Wolf, and other members with Gravatars who are having a similar problem, I have just now created a new gravatar for one of the moderator accounts (not currently in use, but available for testing purposes), and it worked perfectly, other than my picture for the Gravatar doesn't do me justice (). Can I ask that you remove the existing image, and then re-enter your gravatar email address, and provide feedback.